Taipei continues to be on top as Hong Kong's favourite overseas travel destination in the first half of 2014 and compared with the previous year, Taipei's ranking as the favourite destination abroad is rock solid. Taiwan, for the first time, has three cities on the top 20 list.
According to the latest Hotels.com® Hotel Price Index™ (HPI), Hong Kong travellers' top 3 favourite overseas destinations in the first half of 2014 are within the Asia-Pacific regions, which are namely Taipei, Seoul and Osaka.
Apart from Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung entered as the 13th and 14th favourite destinations respectively, possibly indicating that Hong Kong people's passion or interest to explore the diversity of landscape, entertainment, food, cultures and history of Taiwan has increased over the year.
As an increasingly popular and trend-setting country, the ranking of South Korea went from top 5 to top 3. Seoul, which stands at the 2nd position in 2014, is definitely becoming an ideal shopping destination for Hong Kong travellers.
Besides, Japan is also undoubtedly one of Hong Kong travellers' favourite countries for food, shopping and relaxation. Osaka has surpassed Tokyo as the 3rd most favourite destination. Naha, the capital city of Okinawa, has also become the new getaway destination in Japan.
Some cities, however, have lost a bit of their charm, such as Bangkok. Affected by the political instability, the ranking of the Thai city has dropped from the 3rd to the 6th during the first 6 months of this year.
Figure 1: Top overseas destinations for travellers from Hong Kong in Jan–Jun 2014 and Jan–Jun 2013
Hotel Price Index™Hotels.com® Hotel Price Index™ (HPI) is a regular report on hotel prices in major destinations across the world. The HPI is based on bookings made on Hotels.com sites and prices shown are those actually paid by customers per room per night, rather than advertised rates.
Now in its tenth year, the HPI is respected as the definitive report on hotel prices paid around the world and is increasingly used as a reference tool by the media, hoteliers, financial analysts, investors, tourism bodies and academics.
The HPI was started in 2004 at 100 and includes all bookings across all star ratings from 1-star to 5-star.
